Race Coverage
"The Word is Gratitude"....
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Saturday, 12 November 2022 00:10
Ironman 70.3 World Championship Race Recap - October 29th, 2022
By David Koppel
Some Background Context: In early August, I finished 2nd in my age group (M35-39) at USAT Olympic distance nationals. I lost to Brett Collins for the second year in a row. Brett is a nice guy, but he's taken two national championships from me and finished one spot in front of me at a 70.3 in June. It was a strong result, but I really didn't leave that weekend feeling fulfilled or motivated to train for the olympic distance. I knew it wasn't triathlon that was the issue, just that I wasn't as into the short course racing as I once was for maybe a couple reasons. 1. It's hard to find really competitive fields and big races in that distance. 2. The swim is a much bigger portion of the race, which leaves me chasing faster swimmers for the entire bike and run legs.
I had really enjoyed Steelhead 70.3 (half ironman) in late June and I did have 2 more 70.3's on the calendar in the next 2.5 months. The other thought I had that I couldn't quite shake was that I didn't know if I was getting everything I wanted out of my training to be the fastest possible triathlete on the time I had available. As in, I've coached myself for 6 years and certainly gotten faster each year, but was I getting ALL of the juice from the squeeze?! So many of my peers and guys beating me are coached athletes, and having never been coached, I started to wonder what I may be missing....
Damon's Picks...
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Thursday, 03 November 2022 00:10
The MMH Committee did not convene this season, thus there are no official Minnesota Multisport Honorees. Still, two members of that committee, Matt and Damon, studied the 2022 resumes of Minnesota triathletes and came up with their respective nominees and winners.
Today's post features Damon's picks, which are based on an athlete having at least three impressive performance last season. Matt's picks will post on Sunday.
Damon's unofficial Minnesota Athletes of the Year:
- TRIATHLETE OF THE YEAR - PRESTON YOUNGDAHL (photo) and HEATHER LENDWAY
Male Nominees: Aj Manning, Andy Zabel
Female Nominee: Maggie Swanson
Manning Makes History at Green Lake...
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Saturday, 01 October 2022 00:10
ED. We love to post local coverage. We discovered this Green Lake Tri coverage earlier this week.
Text and Photos by Joe Brown (wctrib.com - August 14, 2022)
SPICER — Andrew Manning made his mark on the Green Lake Triathlon on Sunday.
Manning — a 34 year old from Fargo, North Dakota — set a new course record in the Olympic race with a time of 1 hour, 35 minutes, 31 seconds. That beats the previous course record of 1:41:53 set by Marcus Stromberg in 2012....
"The Lake Was the Only Place to Find Warmth"...
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Saturday, 24 September 2022 00:10
By Tad Weiss
IRONMAN WISCONSIN RACE REPORT - The 20th edition of IRONMAN Wisconsin was held on September 11th in Madison, Wisconsin. After a nice day on Saturday for the 70.3 race, a cold front pushed through and sat over the Madison area throughout the day. Temperatures were in the mid-50s, the wind blew 15 to 25 mph throughout the day, and the rain was non-stop; 3 inches in total on the day. The voice of Ironman, Mike Reilly, said it was one of, if not the worst, conditions he’d witnessed covering 200 Ironman events!...
Bringing Out Their Best...
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Wednesday, 21 September 2022 00:10
ONE LAST TRI COVERAGE - The MTN Guys love to "drop names." Put differently, we love to talk about people, especially those who set the performance standards in our region.
In most of our posts, we talk about the "ususal suspects," i.e. those that consistently race at the front, both overall and in age groups. It delights us when we have the opportunity to write about new people, those whose names we've not previously mentioned.
We get to do that here. Three of the four overall winners of last Sunday's One Last Tri are names that haven't been mentioned on this site in the past, and those athletes recorded their first career multisport victories.
Let's start with the OLT OLYMPIC, which was won by LEVI ARNEBERG and CHARLEEN STOECKEL, both of whom threw down breakout performances. Levi's previous best tri effort was his 16th at Chisago Olympic. A time comparison--yes, the distances were not identical--nevertheless demonstrated a significant improvement, especially on the bike. His final 2:13:31 gave him a narrow 27-second victory over runner-up KRISTIAN STOECKEL, another athlete we had yet to hghlight on our site. ...
"The Warning Lights Came on Again and Again"...
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Monday, 19 September 2022 00:10
By Ted Treise
Santa Cruz 70.3 Highlights – First off, the race is probably one of the best race locations I’ve traveled to. San Francisco is close and easy to fly into, the town is not a tourist trap and feels like there’s a sense of community, and finally the race course is just amazing. Only downside might be the housing situation. Dani and I got a dirt cheap AirBnB (hotels were $500/ night) that appeared to once be a 1 story home and has since been converted into 3 rented areas separated by plywood in a, ah, developing neighborhood. We kept the bikes close by and doors locked.
Swim
Santa Cruz is a typical Ocean swim course being 3/4ths of a rectangle from the beach. Ocean swims are my bread and butter – wetsuit legal, salty water helping with more flotation and typically a beach start with a run in. On race morning at 6:50, I lined up on the far outside of the start line behind Eric Lagerstrom and Matt Sharpe. TO was a few guys down but my hope was if I could get in there on the swim, catch their feet for as long as I could, then hopefully be a part of a pack with whoever also thought that plan was a good idea. At first, it worked like a charm. The run in created some natural separation right away making it less of a brawl once we all go horizontal and I was able to get on Erics feet. Of course, he gapped the group pretty quick, but I found myself in a good group on some feet and I was PUSHING to stay on. A little gap opened up with the swimmer in front of me and another swimmer was able to slot in. Unfortunately, said swimmer also lost the draft and we were in no mans land quickly. At the halfway point, I split a sighting Buoy with him and a few others, then put in a serge to swim solo knowing the pack I wanted was about a minute up. ...
